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from Manchester
Metro News Friday 27 October 2000
 'One
of the lucky ones'
by Seb Ramsay
GREAT War veteran Reuben
Heywood fought in the horror of the Western Front and was shot in both legs
— but reckons he was one of the lucky ones.
The 101-year-old from
Wythenshawe is the only one of his regiment still alive from the conflict.
But despite his age, he
was determined to pay tribute to his fallen comrades in the run-up to the
anniversary of Armistice Day next month.
So he made a gruelling
journey to the regimental museum of the South Wales Borderers in Brecon.
As Reuben is the
Borderers’ only known living veteran of the 1914-18 war, staff gave him a
hero’s welcome.
He told how he was just
18 when he was blasted through both legs as he fought with the
regiment in north east France in the final months of the war. Reuben, who
was among ex-servicemen who received the top French bravery medal In
December 1998, still remembers the bullet which brought him home from the trenches.
"We were on the
defensive In Bapaume in September 1918," he said.
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Reuben (centre) in hospital in 1918
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"I was kneeling
down and the bullet came across and went through both of my
legs, but missed the bones.
"I was very lucky
because I’m still here and I can still walk — it could have been much
worse."
Reuben, who now. lives
with his daughter Brenda, told how he was found by American medics and taken
to their hospital.
The British army
declared him missing in action until he was re-united with his regiment and
taken back to England.
He spent months in
hospital in Cheltenham then returned to Manchester, to become a clerk for
the electricity board.
The South Wales
Borderers Regiment is now known as the Royal Regiment of Wales.
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